Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02]

by Eric Brown

  Pham drank it down quickly, leaving a thin white moustache across her top lip.

  Sukara reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder. “Pham, Jeff told me about you.”

  “Jeff is Vaughan? What did he say?”

  “About what you saw in the amusement park, and that the killer is trying to find you.”

  Pham sat, her legs hanging over the side of the sofa, her feet not touching the floor, and pulled a face so comical in its exaggerated despair that Sukara had to smile.

  “Where have you been sleeping until now?” she asked.

  The girl shrugged. “In a park. The killer has been looking for me. He beat up a friend of mine, a boy called Abdul. He nearly killed him. Abdul told me about Vaughan—I thought he might be able to help me.”

  It was strange, but as she stared at the tiny girl on the sofa, the child’s calm Thai features overlaid any memory of Tiger’s appearance that Sukara might have retained. It was as if Pham had become Tiger, and the transformation twisted something deep in Sukara’s chest.

  She reached out and took the girl’s hand. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. Jeff would help you, if he were here. But he’s gone to Mallory, working on the case of the laser killer. He won’t be back for a few days.”

  “But...” Pham began.

  “It’s okay,” Sukara said, watching the child’s expression as she went on, “you don’t think I’d send you back out there, do you?”

  “You mean...?” Pham looked around the lounge as if it were Aladdin’s cave. “I can stay here, with you?”

  Sukara smiled. “Would you like that?”

  Pham appealed to her with sudden, pathetic eagerness. “I’d be no trouble! I’d cook and clean and shop for you. And I could sleep here—” she thumped the cushion beside her with the ham of her small fist. “I’d be very clean and quiet.”

  Sukara laughed. She wanted to take the girl in her arms and hug her. She wondered if her daughter would be as pretty as Pham.

  “There’s a spare room, with a nice bed. You can have that until Jeff gets back and sorts things out.”

  The girl stared at her, open-mouthed.

  Sukara said, “Jeff told me that you left the factory where you worked, came up here all alone.” The parallels between Pham’s story and Tiger’s brought a sudden pain to Sukara’s chest; it was as if she were reliving her own desperate loneliness in the days and weeks when Tiger left her. “You were very brave.”

  Pham shrugged. “I always wanted to see the upper levels,” she said. “I wanted to see the sky.”

  “You never saw it before now?”

  Pham shook her head, and Sukara said, “So what do you think?”

  Pham grinned. “It goes on forever and it’s so big!”

  Sukara laughed. “And then you found yourself chased by a killer!”

  Pham turned down her bottom lip in a pantomime gesture of fear. She looked around the lounge, then back to Sukara, and said, “What is Jeff doing on Mallory?”

  “He said he had a lead. The Scheering people are doing something on the colony world, and they don’t want anyone finding out what it is. Jeff’s gone to find out what the big secret is.”

  “Does he have any contacts on Mallory?”

  Sukara looked at the kid. That was a sophisticated question for a child of her age. She nodded. “He has a couple of names, people he’ll try to find.”

  Pham nodded.

  Sukara said, “Jeff said that you were orphaned...?”

  Matter-of-factly, Pham nodded and said, “My parents were killed in a dropchute accident three years ago. I’ve been working in the factory since I was four.”

  Sukara stared at the tiny parcel of skin and bone before her. “You’re seven?”

  Pham nodded proudly. “Nearly eight,” she said.

  She looked about five, or less, with her skinny brown legs sticking out from her baggy shorts, and the T-shirt drooping from her shoulders as if on a hanger.

  Sukara frowned. “What did you hope to find up here, Pham?”

  The girl shrugged. “I wanted to see the sky,” she said. “Then I wanted to find work. I can work hard. After that I could find a small place to live. But most of all I...” She stopped, as if embarrassed, and shook her head avoiding Sukara’s enquiring gaze.

  “But most of all, what?” Sukara prompted.

  After a hesitation, Pham said, “I wanted to see the Tigers play in their new stadium.”

  Sukara nodded. “That sounds like a good thing to do. I’ll tell you what, why don’t we go to a game later in the week, okay? They play on Sunday, don’t they?”

  Pham nodded and smiled, and Sukara felt a sudden kick in her stomach that had nothing to do with her own, biological child.

  “Okay, let’s show you your new room, Pham,” Sukara said, smiling as she pictured Jeff’s face when he came back to find Pham living with them.

  Perhaps the little girl would bring good luck with her, Sukara thought as she led Pham to her room.

  * * * *

  TWENTY-TWO

  STARSHIP CARNAGE

  Under the light of an alien sun, with three moons sailing high overhead, Vaughan stood on the blue grass of the mountain plain, arms raised above his head.

  The radical, Weiss, levelled his laser pistol. “Who the hell are you?” he said, “And what the fuck are you doing here?”

  Vaughan glanced at the carbonised remains of the two men on the blue grass, contorted like melted plastic.

  “I’m on your side, Weiss. I’m an investigator, working for the widow of Robert Kormier-—”

  “Kormier’s dead?”

  “Along with a colleague of his, Travers.”

  “Travers too? Christ.” Weiss was in his forties, thin faced and bald headed. His eyes looked haunted, harried, and he hadn’t shaved for a few days. He wore a threadbare one-piece thermal suit, ripped at the knees.

  Vaughan took a step forward, but Weiss twitched his laser level again. “Stay there! How the hell do I know you’re not working for Scheering?”

  Vaughan nodded. “That’s reasonable. You don’t. I’d be as wary, in your situation.” He paused, then went on, “Kormier and Travers were murdered by an assassin on Earth a little under a week ago. Around nine months ago, a woman called Dana Mulraney was killed—we think by the same hired assassin. I suspect Scheering-Lassiter were behind the murders.”

  Weiss was watching him, his face pulled tight with suspicion. “I knew about Dana. We were close. I worked with her up north. The bastards are picking us off, one by one.”

  Vaughan said, “Why did Scheering want Kormier dead?”

  Weiss hesitated. “Kormier worked for Scheering, but he didn’t like what was happening here. He contacted Eco-Col, told them what he suspected.”

  “The tusker cull, right? Scheering’s men were going over quota?”

  Weiss sneered, a facial tic drawing his right eye into an involuntary flutter. “Going over quota? Listen, they’re intent on eradicating every last Grayson’s Pachyderm on the planet.” He stared at Vaughan, then said, “We don’t call them tuskers— that’s what the farmers call them. They were discovered by one of the original explorers—Douglas Grayson.”

  Vaughan lowered his arms, and to his relief Weiss was amenable. “Let’s get this right. It isn’t a cull? Scheering’s ordered the elimination of the entire population?”

  Weiss gave the slightest nod. “You got it.”

  “Christ, but if word got out...”

  Weiss stared at him, something almost like contempt in his gaze. “What do you think we’ve been trying to do, for the past few months? As well as saving the creatures, we’ve been trying to get Eco-Col to believe us.”

  Vaughan said, “You don’t work for Eco-Col?”

  “I did. So did Jenna and a dozen others. When we found out that Scheering was not only going over quota, but eradicating every last herd of Grayson’s... well, we went to our superiors and reported the situation.”

  Vaughan shook his head. �
��There should have been an outcry.”

  “Too right. But it was a big claim, and Eco-Col were wary of accusing a respected figure like Scheering of such a crime. They sent someone to investigate.”

  “Don’t tell me—Travis, right?”

  Weiss laughed, bitterly. “Right. He came here, closely guarded, of course. He monitored the cull, checked figures—all doctored by Scheering’s lackeys. Then we got to him. Kormier told Travers, proved to him that Scheering wanted every last pachyderm dead. When Travers confronted Scheering, told him that he was returning to Earth to make his report... well, he effectively signed his own death warrant.”

  Vaughan asked the obvious question, “So okay, but why the hell does Scheering want to eradicate the animals?”

  “Ostensibly, because the pachyderms destroy crops every spring season, do millions of dollars worth of damage. They got a culling quota from the colonial authorities, permission to take out a hundred bulls every year. They began the slaughter last year—only they didn’t limit themselves just to bulls, or to the agreed figure.”

  Vaughan thought of the herd of slaughtered animals he’d seen that morning. “So that’s the ostensible reason.” He paused. “What’s the real reason Scheering wants them out of the way?”

  Weiss drew his thin lips into a smile that suggested not the slightest trace of humour. “Mallory’s rich. The Scheering organisation mine ten per cent of all the gold produced in the colonies, and twenty percent of all the uranium.”

  Vaughan shrugged. “So... how do the pachyderms stop them doing that?”

  “Hear me out. Mallory is Scheering’s richest planet. It makes his fortune, keeps all his fat shareholders in luxury. But if the truth got out, then the colonial authorities would close the whole place down, order an immediate evacuation.” He finished with a smile, watching Vaughan’s slowly dawning comprehension.

  “The authorities would only do that if...” The idea was too much to take in all at once.

  Weiss was nodding. “If any of the indigenous life forms were classified on the Baumann scale as sentient.”

  Vaughan said, “And the pachyderms qualify?”

  “Well, that’s the odd thing. You see, not all of them do—that’s why the original explorers, and the xeno-zoological teams who followed them, classified them as non-sentient.”

  “Wait a minute—that’s not possible. Some of the pachyderms are intelligent, but some aren’t?”

  Weiss shrugged. “I know. Crazy, but it’s true. Look, who’s to say that intelligence evolves in the same way all over the galaxy? Here, only certain creatures develop what we term as sentience, for whatever reasons that might be. Fact remains, even if one in a hundred pachyderms were registered as A1 sentient, that’d be enough to close the planet down. And Scheering wouldn’t be happy about that.”

  Vaughan thought back to yesterday, when the leader of the herd he’d encountered on the way south had seemed to lead him from the track towards the cutting, as if it had intuited his need to avoid the militia.

  Vaughan looked up, past Weiss to the flank of the starship. “Larsen’s covering me, right?”

  Something hardened in the radical’s eyes. “Jenna’s dead.” He gestured to the twisted remains of Scheering’s men. “They got her with their first shot.” He stared at Vaughan. “You haven’t answered my question—what are you doing here?”

  “My investigations on Earth led me to one of Scheering’s executives, guy called Denning. He was ordered to lead a team here, link up with these two—” he nodded towards the bodies, “and bring you in, dead or alive.”

  “So you thought you’d get here before them, warn me?”

  “That’s about it. I knew where you were holed up, but when I got to Campbell’s you’d headed out, followed by Scheering’s men.”

  “We knew they were watching us, but we figured they wouldn’t make a move till we headed for the starship.”

  “They were ordered to keep you under surveillance, and only apprehend you if you tried to reach the ship.”

  “You know a hell of a lot about their operations,” Weiss snapped, “for someone not involved with Scheering,”

  Slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion, Vaughan reached into his jacket pocket and produced his real ID card and his investigator’s licence. He tossed them across to Weiss.

  The radical held the cards in one hand, the pistol in the other, still aimed at Vaughan’s chest.

  Weiss looked up. “You’re telepathic?”

  “That’s how I know so much about what Denning’s up to,” he said.

  Weiss narrowed his eyes. “How come? All Scheering’s operatives are shielded.”

  “Yeah, they are until you cut their shields out with a scalpel,” Vaughan said. “Then they’re not.”

  Weiss returned the cards. “When’s Denning due on Mallory?”

  “This morning. His ship landed at ten. How long would it take for him and his team to fly down here from Mackintyre?”

  “Say two hours, three maximum.”

  “And another hour to trace you this far.” Vaughan looked at his watch. “I reckon they’ll be showing up any time now.” He activated his implant and sent out a scan. The man before him, like every other adult on the planet, was shielded—and there was no distant mind-noise from the approaching Denning.

  Weiss said, “What’s that?”

  Vaughan told him.

  “Early warning system,” the radical said, “or are you signalling to him my whereabouts?”

  Vaughan sighed. “I understand your suspicion, Weiss. I’d feel the same way.” He thought about it. “Look, do you think I’d’ve walked in here unarmed, risking my life when you’ve just shot dead two of Scheering’s men?”

  “How do I know you’re not armed?”

  Vaughan raised his arms. “Search me.”

  Warily, one-handed, Weiss did so—keeping his laser on Vaughan at all times.

  Weiss nodded. “You’re clean.”

  Vaughan smiled. “Believe me, I’m on your side.” He paused, then said, “Look, with Denning on his way, I don’t think we should be hanging about.”

  Weiss nodded and looked at the starship, then back at Vaughan, as if wondering how much to tell the stranger.

  Vaughan said, “Scheering seems to think that you’re pretty important. He told Denning you had vital information. Scheering wants it so desperately he’s sent a necropath along, so if you were killed in the confrontation she’d be able to read you.”

  Weiss said, “And you expect me to tell you what that information might be?”

  Vaughan said, “Like I said, I’m on your side.”

  Weiss nodded, slowly, watching Vaughan. “I know the whereabouts of Breitenbach, Vaughan,” he said at last.

  Vaughan blinked. “Who?”

  Weiss smiled. “Know something, either you’re a damned fine actor, or you’re on the level. Breitenbach is how it all began—the guy who discovered that certain of the pachyderms were intelligent. Then he vanished, around five years ago. We thought Scheering had got him. But word got out— he contacted Travers, told him to tell Jenna what he needed. What Breitenbach needed, that is.”

  “Which is?”

  Weiss took a few seconds to reply, looking at Vaughan and then towards the starship. “We’ve got to take something from the ship, ferry it to Breitenbach. It’s important. Vitally important.”

  Vaughan nodded. “Look, I won’t ask where Breitenbach is, okay? That way you might trust me.”

  “Thing is, I’ll need your help with this stuff, now that Jenna...” He stopped, then went on, “We were going to take the off-roader, but seeing as how the bastards have left their flier, we’ll take that.”

  They crossed to the flier and climbed aboard. Weiss checked the controls, then eased the vehicle into the air and through a fracture in the ship’s panelling.

  “What are we looking for?” Vaughan asked.

  “Breitenbach calls them alien crystals, and before you ask, no, I have no ide
a why he wants them. We work in cells of two and three. We’re told as much as we need to know. It’s safer that way, in case Scheering captures us.”

  Weiss settled the flier and Vaughan climbed out.

  After the sunlight, it was dim within the belly of the ship. After a few seconds his eyes adjusted, and for the first time he became aware of the ship’s true dimensions. From the outside, he had seen only the bulging flank, unaware of the vessel’s width.